Grace Over Guns: Pursuing Peace in a Militarized World
By Ben Daniel
Herald Press, 200 pages
Published June 16, 2026
There are books that make you laugh, books that make you feel deeply and books that teach you something. Rarer still is the book that changes your perspective and challenges the way you interact with the world around you. Grace Over Guns solidified the pacifist within me and challenged me to look for, embrace and lift up threads of peace and grace begging to be made known.
Ben Daniel, a Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) pastor in Oakland, California, roots his argument in both Scripture and theology; in a chapter that unpacks “(t)he intersection of hyped patriotism, military fetishization, and sports,” he names that what we often meet is not the religion of Jesus, “for it does not deal in grace. It does not give us the courage to love our enemies in accordance with the demands of the gospel; it asks us to feel good about killing our enemies. It does not speak of compassion or forgiveness as do Jesus’ teachings; it deals in vengeance and violence. It does not help us build community by welcoming strangers as our faith would have us do. It encourages us to foster enmity and make enemies.”
(Daniel) continually points the reader back to a gospel of grace, for this is at the heart of the Christian tradition — more often than not, however, he does this through a lens of intellectual inquiry and curiosity.
Like any good pastor, Daniel also seeks empathy and understanding. He continually points the reader back to a gospel of grace, for this is at the heart of the Christian tradition — more often than not, however, he does this through a lens of intellectual inquiry and curiosity. As much as Grace Over Guns is best explained through an American lens of understanding, Daniel takes the reader on a journey around the world. From ruminations about the unhoused in the San Francisco Bay Area to the end of four decades of occupation in Estonia to the aftermath of a plutonium bomb dropped on Nagasaki during World War II, Daniel is a wizened history teacher with a year’s worth of lessons to pass along.
If I were sitting across the table from a friend, it’s hard to know what I’d say first about the book: You’ll feel like you are with him as he attends a fútbol game in Alajuela, Costa Rica, or tours a tenement in Belfast, Ireland, precisely because his writing is gravitational, invitational and uniquely present too. I’d encourage my friend to enjoy a bit of snark and wit, but to also not miss the extensive, 11-page Notes section at the end, where Daniel hands the reader a platter of future explorations.
While I wholeheartedly recommend Grace Over Guns, I would have appreciated an acknowledgment of privilege. Each chapter takes the reader to a different country — experiences that may feel unattainable to the average reader. A nod to international travel as a privilege might just do the trick.
Whether a reader stands behind the pulpit every week or has never stood before a community of kindred spirits, I have no doubt Daniel’s book will meet the needs of most Trinitarian-minded readers. Individual readers will likely mark up pages, while small groups will find much to discuss. If there’s a place for peace in your heart, then there’s a place for Grace Over Guns.
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